Help with tea storage!

Does anyone have great ideas on where and how to store all your tea tins so that they are easily accessible? I am confronting the fact today that my tea pyramid is out of hand and I need a new solution. I have also GOT to quit buying more tea until I have finished some of these tins I already own!

I have a small cabinet in my kitchen that I keep all my tea in. We had previously been using it for spices but it was so small it was hard to get them in and out. I bought a bunch of cute tins from World Market and have them organized by type. It should be neater if I could quell the urge to buy new teas because I’m not always great about putting them in the tins (plus I’ve since run out, need to go get more). If you figure out a way to keep from buying new teas before finishing old ones, let me know :)

I had to designate a cabinet for tea. I do have to dig through it sometimes, because I have so many tins, but it is all contained and mostly out of site (which is good for my marriage!) I have a bin for small samples, a bin for slightly bigger bags up to 2 ounces, and then a shelf full of tins. I tend to put the bigger bags from which I refill tins in the back.

As for the not buying more…..I fail at this. At least once a week, and sometimes more often than that. ;)

I have been trying to empty some things. I keep those tins/bags a few at a time close to my kettle for when I am in a “I just need tea, but it does not matter what kind” mood. It is about those teas I am referring when I mention my chopping block.

With a family of five and lots of at home cooking, I don’t have cabinet space…at least, unless I can get really creative with my organization! I think I may have a possible solution. We have some blank wall space over our bread table where we grind our wheat and make bread and store the wheat pails beneath. There is a world map hanging there now that would be much better situated elsewhere, especially for viewing ease, and I could put shelves there to hold the tins. As long as I kept them grouped by type of tin, I don’t think they would look too cluttered. I have a box I keep my foil packets in already, and it could go there, too. Now to work on making myself not order more tea. I tell myself that I am satisfied and don’t need to try anyting new for quite a while and in a very short time I read a tea description and I cave! Then there is the whole issue with having a tin and deciding I have to keep a pound of something around, so I have the tin for daily use and the pound bag for refilling, and it adds to the mix!

Hmmmm, small house for as many people as live here, and we have lots of hobbies so all space taken up! But there is a large closet in the kitchen that has the washer in it. I could possibly do some rearranging and make it work.

I bought two small DIY shelves in my desired size and colour to hold my tea when it expanded beyond the available shelf space in my kitchen. I like it a lot, and it’s made it a lot easier to A) Keep the tea together and B) Keep other smells out of the tea. I had a little space nearly 2 feet wide that I could fit the shelves in, so I went for taller, narrow ones though depending on your floor space you could certainly branch out. I also used the two empty shelves (for now!) to store other things, like my alcohol “cabinet” and my journals. It’s an interesting shelf… But, it also gave me room to put my favourite cups, teapot and sample basket on the top, which was great. I hate hiding away my favourite tea things! : )

I like the shelf idea! I just don’t have any available wall space where I am (windows, cabinets, and doorways). I did have to relocate some of the kitchen items I rarely use to the basement to get a cabinet available for tea. It is so fun to see how everyone solves this problem. I think we are all pretty good at figuring out what works with what we have.

And I hear you on the hobby storage! We are trying to get rid of the toys we no longer use so we can store the projects…… It seems like it is always a shuffle.

I have little good wal space left for hanging pictures and such, but it happens that the wall over the bread table is about seven feet wide and blank, other than a world map that really should be elsewhere. I did root through my closet and cabinets, but didn’t really see a good place to repurpose, so I am thinking it will be a shelf. I love hearing all these ideas though.

Hobbies. Hubby just took up stained glass, I make cards and scrapbook, hubby plays classical guitar so there are four cases in the living room, a piano, an Autoharp, a psaltery…middle daughter draws, so art stuff, son is a stormtrooper from Star Wars…do you have any idea how much room that armor takes up? And he has two sets! Bigger house, please!

Your house sounds just as busy as mine! We have far too many muscial instruments, what used to be the dining room is now filled with glass kilns and all the gas canisters needed to make the glass-burner work and all my woodworking tools are in there, too. My tea space is really restricted, so I have actually got one shelf in the kitchen (here I keep the teas I need to use up and larger tins of tea as well), two small tea chests upstairs in the bedroom along with various boxes of samples. I also have a wooden tea boat that I made which I designed so the teaware I use it with fits inside so it can be easily stored away under a tea chest. I will have to see about squeezing another few shelves in somewhere – it is such a shame to have to hide all my favourite teaware out of sight!

My husband relegated me to one shelf in the kitchen. I think he thought this might actually keeping from buying too much. Instead, I launched Joy’s Teaspoon. Jokes on him! Prior to JT, I was similar to LefTea. I bought a bunch of air tight containers and put my tea in there. They were the perfect height to stack one of top of the other and I had them sorted by type of tea. Except for my stuff from Todd and Holland. Their pouches kind of fit together like a puzzle so I sorted those by type and grouped them together. I think we all figure out how to mazimize storage with minimal space! Here’s to creativity!

I too utilize the shelf idea, however if you are out of wall space an ingenious idea I’ve seen is to glue a small magnet to the back of the tin and attach it them to your refrigerator. You could also modify this idea and attach them to the inside of a pantry or cabinet doors.